


I Don't Need A Minder (I've Made Up My Mind)

by DefaltManifesto



Category: Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Body Worship, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, F/M, Gentle Sex, Grief/Mourning, Light Masochism, Light Sadism, Rough Sex, Sexual Experimentation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-16
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-24 19:00:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9780704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DefaltManifesto/pseuds/DefaltManifesto
Summary: Alanna's comfort with her body comes with time, and with it comes the ability to grapple with everything else.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ms_m_bookworm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ms_m_bookworm/gifts).



> I just finished rereading the Song of the Lioness quartet for the billionth time and just really wanted to write this piece. I definitely have plans for more Tortall fics in the future (especially for Kel at some point). 
> 
> Comments are loved. I appreciate them all. 
> 
> Title from Swallow by Emilie Autumn.

[The tumblr](http://schizzar.tumblr.com)

 

The first time Alanna goes to bed with someone, with _Jon_ , she nearly shakes the entire time. She’s as nervous as he is. His hands tremble as he helps her out of her clothes and he spends a long few minutes just staring at her when she’s bare, looking overwhelmed. His confidence with women seems gone in that moment, as though he’s never known where to put his hands. For a brief second, it makes her feel powerful, but then she’s scared all over again. If he doesn’t know what he’s doing then they’re in trouble because she’s just gotten the hang of kissing.

When his hands touch her again, skating up her sides and framing her face, it settles both of them. They kiss, easy and slow, and the rasp of his clothing on her bare skin makes her shiver and the growing heat in her belly coil. She spreads her legs without thinking. Jon settles between them, and while the fabric of his sleep pants is soft, it feels rough against the sensitive skin she’s never tried to stimulate before. The sensations take her by surprise and she gasps into Jon’s kisses, her hands reaching up to his face.

She knows by now every inch of her body from training but this…this she’s stubbornly avoided. As shocks of pleasure start to zip through her, she’s beginning to regret that earlier choice. Jon breaks their kiss and for a moment they stare at each other, wide-eyed and breathless. Then he props himself up on his elbow and slides his free hand between them, fingers sliding over the bundle of nerves she’s been grinding against him. She moans, head flopping against the pillow as the new sensations shake their way through her. It seems to be a breaking point for Jon. He scrambles back and sheds his clothes before she can even catch her breath.

Stretching out on top of her again, he takes her mouth in a deep kiss as his fingers slide into her. She can’t help but squirm and gasp, her body unsure of what to do with all the new feelings, especially since it’s so used to her putting it through the wringer instead of taking the time to do well…this.

“Gods, Alanna, I need…” Jon groans against her lips and she can feel his cock sliding along her thigh.

“Yes please, Jonathan, please-“

When he slides into her, it’s sharp, painful almost. She’s used to pain though and it’s easy to look past it and revel in the feeling that Jon is inside her, truly. The awed feeling is dashed away a moment later. She’s never felt so scared or vulnerable in her life. It must read on her face because Jonathan stops and looks down at her with an expression that mirrors her own.

“Do you…” Jon wets his lips. “Do you want me to stop?”

“I just…” She doesn’t have words for what she’s feeling because these feelings have never come easy to express, least of all to Jon. Everything else was easy but this? “Come on.”

Jon buries his face in her neck and she closes her eyes.

After, with his release dripping down her thighs, she wonders where the pleasure went. The pain when he’d filled her had melded into a dull ache that she’d enjoyed, and sometimes when he’d thrust she got the pressure she needed on the sensitive area above where he pushed inside. But it never crested and when he’d rolled over after, moments away from sleep, she was left…wanting.

She rolls over onto the bed and sneaks under his arm. He mumbles something in his sleep and pulls her closer. It helps the sudden loneliness that claws under her chest.

 

-.-

 

The first time Alanna comes, it’s with George’s bruising hands holding her hips to the bed as his tongue flicks over her clit. Her thighs nearly close him in before she finds enough self control to make her legs lie down as she shakes and makes embarrassing high-pitched noises she wasn’t aware she was capable of. When she goes limp on the bed, sucking in huge gasps of breath, George pulls back and sits back on his heels between her spread legs.

"What…was that?” she finally manages to say, but she isn’t able to stop her deep flush from her ignorance.

She kicks at him when he starts to laugh, and then again when it just makes him laugh harder.

“Sorry, sorry,” George says, leaning back down over her, a hand on either side of her head. “Just taking pleasure in the knowledge that I’ve got something over Jon.”

"Huh?”

“That, my sweet lady, was an orgasm,” George says, sneaking a hand down to stroke his finger down over her clit. She jerks, eyes threatening to close, as an over sensitized bolt of pleasure worms up her spine. “Which apparently Jonathan was never able to give you.”

"If you keep saying his damn name I’m going to punch you in the nose,” Alanna says.

“Then I suppose I should give you something else to think about.”

She ends up on George’s lap, George braced against his headboard as Alanna tries to find what works for her. Her hands plant flat on either side of his head on the wall. She bites her lip in concentration as she rolls her hips, trying to find the right angle while George just holds her hips.

“That’s it,” he says, voice low and just a little bit strained. “Find out what you like. I’m here for you. Whatever you need.”

She finds her second orgasm in a much gentler fashion. Where the first was a bolt of lightning, this is a slowly cresting wave that washes over and wipes her clean, making her shiver and gasp out George’s name against her lips. It makes tears well in her eyes, whether from the sensations or from the pain of rejection still lurking in her chest she doesn’t know. George’s arms hold her close after. She can still feel him inside her but she feels like all of her energy is gone.

“You should…” She presses a kiss to his neck. “Keep going.”

George shifts them so she’s on her back, the movement fluid just as all his others are. He covers her with his body as his lips find hers in another kiss. His movements are slow as he thrusts into her, more a deep grind than the frantic thrusts and chasing of pleasure that had characterized her times in bed with Jon. She twists her fingers in his hair as emotions well up in her chest again, unidentifiable but not something she can ignore either.

She’s on the edge of another climax within minutes, breath heaving as George’s lips suck marks against her collarbone. One of her hands slides down to clutch at his back, fingers digging into the corded muscle by his spine as she rocks her hips up searching for the friction she knows will get her the rest of the way there. She comes just after George, his desperate gasps of her name taking her by surprise and shoving her over the edge. She shakes around him and he swallows her noises with a soft kiss.

 

-.-

 

The first time Alanna tries something rough is with Liam. He has a way about him that makes some part inside of her want to be tossed around and held down. The sex they have is a fight, a tangle of limbs as they push and pull and bite at each other. When he finally gets inside her, she’s sprawled face down in the bed, fingers twisting in the sheets with his fingers spread over her back as he holds her down. Some part of her expects it to hurt with the foreplay but it’s not. Liam is forceful, rough, but nothing about his cock inside her is painful.

When he’s confident she’s not about to turn it into a battle again he moves his hands to grab her hips instead. Alanna melts into the mattress, a whining noise leaving her as Liam grinds in. She feels full, dominated, and yet not at all vulnerable. Liam’s giving it to her like this because he knows she can take it, knows she wants it, and it’s a sweet release to hand the reins over entirely to his will.

“Good, kitten?”

"Yes, fuck do you want me to stroke your ego some more?” she hisses, but it doesn’t quite have the effect she wants when she breaks off into a moan at a particularly well aimed thrust and his fingers flicking down over his clit.

“No, your cunt is doing that plenty well for me,” he says, then pinches her clit.

She squeals then, rocking up on to shaky arms as she squirms from the mix of pleasure and pain that makes her brain fizzle. One of Liam’s broad hands moves to her throat, guiding her up and back until she’s pressed against his front as he starts to pound into her, his fingers alternating between soft touches and pinches and pulls on the bundle of nerves between her legs. Somehow, the grip on her throat is gentle. She lets him guide her all the way back so her head is resting on his shoulder. When she goes limp, he holds her up like that.

“Liam…”

“You can come now,” he says. “And I can keep wringing them out of you until you can’t move. How does that sound?”

His voice is rough, labored, a reminder that he’s as into it as she is.

“Please,” she says.

By the time they’re done, she’s come five times and is soaked in sweat. She feels a little disgusting from all the slick between her legs, but it’s not enough to bother her when coupled with the bone deep satisfaction Liam’s managed to give her. He traces lines absentmindedly on her stomach after, making her muscles quiver and jump. She pushes him away and then rolls into him instead.

Scars cover his body. She stifles a soft groan as she moves enough to straddle his wide hips. He stares up at her through half-closed eyes, breath catching when she leans down to press her lips to the first scar by his collarbone, scraping her teeth over it before kissing her way down to the next just over his left nipple. She works her way down, slow and careful, pressing a kiss or bite to every scar she finds.

It’s not about sex. He doesn’t get hard and arousal doesn’t even stir within her. She just wants to explore his body, find every inch of pain he ever felt and touch every corded muscle as if she could absorb some of his skill just through that alone. She knows it will take more training, training each day, but that doesn’t make this any less fun. With a sigh, she settles over him and closes her eyes.

 

-.-

 

The first, second, and third time Alanna loses someone who matter’s so much that each breath feels like it takes every ounce of energy is on the same. Adrenaline helps her save the world but once it’s worn off, once she’s surrounded by the sands to the south with the sun beating down on her, she feels empty and loss. Thom’s loss hurts the most, but she knew, really, that it was inevitable. Even without Roger sucking his life away from, it had only been a matter of time before his body wasted away from the desperate need to be better and stronger. And really, he’d known and so had Si-Cham. Giving her his Gift had only been a plot to try and keep something from Roger, not save Thom’s life.

Liam’s loss aches like an open wound. She binds it tight each day to stop the bleeding, but as night comes the bandages are soaked through and it leaves her staring at her tent ceiling with a roar in her chest, loud and ferocious like his battle cry. She wakes up often with the image of him lying on the ground with arrows riddling his body. The worst nights are when she wakes up with the memory of his fingers on her skin, whether in bed or from training. It feels wrong somehow, to remember those times, to think about them when he’s long gone. She thinks about that while staring up at the new constellation in the sky of Faithful.

Faithful’s loss hurts too, but it’s comforting in a way because she knows he was never meant to stay in her world forever, no matter how much she wished it. Seeing him in the skies helps. Knowing he’s with the Goddess, free of pain and smiling down on her comforts her on nights like these, when the loss of that day lurks in her mind. She wishes he were here though, wishes he could help with the conflicting feelings tearing apart her chest. She’s so wrapped up in her thoughts, she doesn’t notice Kara sitting beside her on the edges of camp until Kara touches her shoulder.

“You come here most nights I’ve noticed,” Kara says, her face free of her usual veil.

“It’s a good place to think,” Alanna says.

“Best place to see The Cat,” Kara says.

Alanna looks at her, unable to help her surprise at how much more mature the young woman seems. “You know, don’t you?”

“That the constellation is of Faithful?” she asks. She turns back to the sky. “Yes. So what do you think about out here?”

“About whether or not I can think about the good times without disrespecting the dead,” Alanna says.

“I don’t see why not. Otherwise you just spend the rest of your life being sad every time you think of them. It’s not wrong to long for them to still be here. Just don’t let the longing consume you,” Kara says.

“When’d you get so smart?” Alanna asks, nudging Kara’s side.

“Shaman’s don’t just heal physical wounds,” Kara says.

Alanna leans over and rests her head on Kara’s shoulder. “I suppose your right.”

Kara wraps an arm around her shoulders and presses a kiss to the top of her head. They sit together until The Cat sets and the sun begins to rise again over the dunes, and the pain still sits heavy in her chest, but for the first time in months, Alanna can finally breathe.

 

-.-

 

The first time Alanna feels like she’s truly come home is the morning after she and George settle into Pirate’s Swoop. He snores softly in the bed, the sheets mussed up around his hips while Alanna sits in the rocking chair she placed by the window that faces the sea, watching the sun rise over the water. She’ll travel soon, because her feet don’t know how to stay planted for long. But for now…for now she has this; a home, a husband.

She smiles and gets to her feet, shrugging out of the long tunic she often wears to sleep. Climbing under the covers, she presses a kiss to George’s shoulder. It’s enough to wake him and he turns, rolling them so the sheets are around his shoulders cocooning them as he smiles down at her.

“Good morning, my love,” he says.

She grins. “Good morning.”


End file.
